Monday, May 08, 2006

Places to Visit Sometime in the Future

I believe it was about two years ago that Mike and I were on the road going somewhere which required a map-book, and I decided to look for streets named after us. I found that Michael is a fairly popular name, with Streets and Avenues and tree-lined Boulevards all over the place. I found one Rachel Avenue. It was in a trailer park.
Today, I discovered a place where we will need to go on vacation someday. It is Rachel, Nevada. A town! Named after me! And this is no ordinary town, either. It has a population of 98 people (down from around 500 in its glory days) who are "mostly very helpful, courteous, and rather interesting to talk to". It is home to a top secret US Air Force base, and is known as the "Sonic Boom Capitol of the World". We'll have to take Highway 375 to get there, officially known as the Extraterrestrial Highway. In fact, along with being the Sonic Boom capitol, it is also the UFO Capitol of the World, so evidently it is quite the place of fame and glory, definitely befitting its regal name. It has three local businesses: one restaurant, a mini-mart, and a gas station. It also recently even got its very own fire truck!
Something else, which I found quite appropriate given the time of year, was that every second Saturday in May is officially celebrated as Rachel Day, with a parade, crafts fair, live music, food and the whole nine yards. It is held in honour of the town's anniversary, officially founded in 1978.
So I was definitely excited to learn about the existence of this town, thinking that having a whole TOWN with my name, and a very unique town at that, more than makes up for the fact that the only Rachel street in Ontario is a trailer park. Then I discovered that everybody in the town of Rachel lives in mobile homes, and even the business are set up in trailers.
Shoot. After all that, it's still just a trailer park.


Information mostly taken (sometimes directly) from
http://www.rachel-nevada.com/


1 comment:

Rachel said...

the town and/or road name "Rachel" is so rare and hard to find because it's a hard name to live up to. Few would dare to attempt to live up to such a rare and beautiful thing such as Rachel... only those in trailer parks.
Rachel B :)